In my experience, there are only two reasons to be standing in a forest before a bonfire of your own clothes: either someone has deliberately misled you about how to apply for a job in a South Staffs coal mine, or you are on a quest to retrieve an old friend’s football rattle.

It was no ordinary rattle, mind you – and no ordinary friend. Percy Belter’s life had taken turn after turn for the worst since the last time we’d played Southampton, thirty-three years before. He was currently residing in a bramble patch in East Park, and blaming his many woes, including five lost jobs, two lost dogs, and a virulent rash he refused to get seen, on leaving his lucky charm on a table of the Joiner’s Arms as he went to the toilet.

“You must have seen who took it, Gonby! It was right there…,” he would say, over and over, during the months after that 1931 game, which we’d won 3-1. By the end of the season, he’d be missing days of work and cadging more fags than was socially acceptable; by the end of the next season, he’d be queuing with schoolboys for broken cakes outside Done’s in Wednesfield.

Jack Dudley was out straight away: he had a hatred of witchcraft in general and of the Coven Coven in particular, for what he perceived to be long-standing sympathies with our bitter rivals, Stafford Road.

News of the rattle’s whereabouts had come from Reg Crainey, on leave from HMS Excitable. Before catching his train in Portsmouth he’d gone off the regular sailors’ beat and found himself in a pub called the George and Dragon where the conversation happened to be about a dragon. This dragon had apparently tormented the people of the New Forest for centuries before being scared off by an awesomely loud football rattle painted black and “brown” (ignorant fools!) with an “incantation to wolves” inscribed upon it. Reg recognized the description immediately, and sought more details, which the locals, wary at first, eventually gave. The “Dragonfrighter” was called Rhys Camfry, a local of the New Forest despite the Welsh name, and probably from Bisterne, where the dragon fed, though they weren’t too sure about that detail. None had ever seen him to give a description.

Reg fed us all the gen on his first night back, over beer and dominoes at the Fox. It was my idea to head up to Coven for advice – and it caused some debate. We would not, it was quickly agreed, rely on the witches for transport: the last two Wolves fans to do that had spent most of the 58/9 championship-winning season watching the Hebridean league. Jack Dudley was out straight away: he had a hatred of witchcraft in general and of the Coven Coven in particular, for what he perceived to be long-standing sympathies with our bitter rivals, Stafford Road. Also, a plan was already in place to join up with Aberystwyth Wolves and sail around Wales and Cornwall to Southampton in a flotilla of fifty vessels (an excursion I would be sorry to miss). I tracked Percy Belter down begging for change outside the Old Bush in Bilston, but he wouldn’t come. In the end, only I, Dicky Leek and Reg Crainey committed to the trip, and we went as a trio up to Coven to secure the services of some adepts.

When we got to Coven, there was a bit of an atmosphere. The Coven Coven was undergoing something of a power-struggle, and the High Priestess was itchy about helping outsiders. She offered to sell us some heather and a bit of incense but that clearly wasn’t going to do much. After a tip-off from one of her underlings, we headed out to Coven Heath where two renegade witches were performing some mumbo-jumbo with a cauldron and some bats’ wings. Philomena and Agnes, they were called. They offered to help us in exchange for four bob each plus expenses, which included the train fare.

We headed down on the Friday before the game, and it wasn’t long before Philomena and Agnes started getting on our nerves. They stank out the compartment on the train, then followed any of us who tried to leave. On the train and when we got to the New Forest, they engaged in long divination sessions in which they produced Tarot cards in sequence, then laughed to each other. Nothing was shared. They left all the investigation work to us, slipping away without notice and then reappearing, usually just before we entered a pub. They looked a sight too, attracting unwanted attention around the villages and even causing us to be refused service in a couple of taprooms.

After a good three hours’ snooping, first at Bisterne and then at Burley, we found ourselves at the Queen’s Head, where the landlord confirmed he knew this Camfry fellow, and sent a lad out with a note from me. Camfry arrived ten minutes later, an unremarkable chap with a Gladstone bag, who, after ordering a black-and-tan, sat down with us and produced the rattle. Some of the paint remained, showing the dark old gold that the team used to play in back when it had been lost.

“Makes a hell of a noise, this durz,” he smiled, before placing it back in the bag.

“They say it keeps a dragon from this place,” said Dicky Leek.

“Irreplaceable really,” said Camfry with a smile.

“My friend would agree with you,” I said, “And he’s the rightful owner.”

“Says you,” replied Camfry, clicking the bag closed, “Says you.”

“What if we removed the dragon by other means?” I suggested, offering him a Craven ‘A’ which he took and placed behind his ear.

“What other means are you suggesting?”

“Witches!” blarted out Reg Crainey. The pub went silent.

“You want to be a little more careful with talk like that,” said Camfry quietly, “There are those round here that don’t like witches. And,” he moved in closer, “there are also those that don’t like to be talked about.”

I didn’t like the way the atmosphere was developing. “If we can get rid of the dragon by other means, will you return the rattle?”

“I would need proof that the Dragon won’t return. It was here for at least five centuries before I scared it away.” He took a long quaff of his beer.

“Leave it to us,” I replied. And we sat in silence for a while before bidding our leave.

When the hags rejoined us at some random moment of the late afternoon, I impressed upon them the need for efficacy and evidence. Agnes whispered something in Philomena’s ear and they both laughed. Philomena nodded solemnly and told us to prepare for a sacred ritual. We would go into the forest towards nightfall and find a suitable clearing, to perform an incantation at midnight.

I thought of Percy Belter and some of the good times we’d had: beating the Albion; drawing against Leicester; taking flagons of Derbyshire ale into potholes with the Speleologist Squadron….

So there we were a few hours later, by the light of the moon, deep in the New Forest, having scat rubbed through our hair by the hag Philomena, as the tindersticks flared and our clothes caught, and Agnes dolefully incanted,

As the chanting went on I thought of Percy Belter and some of the good times we’d had: beating the Albion; drawing against Leicester; taking flagons of Derbyshire ale into potholes with the Speleologist Squadron….

Suddenly, there was a crashing sound beyond our clearing. I heard a short shriek from either Philomena or Dicky, and felt the blood drain down my body. Beyond the clearing some ferns twitched, but from them emerged not a dragon but a chubby woman with a jackdaw on her shoulder.

“What the bloddy hall are yew lot dooin?”

I didn’t know what to say, and when I looked for Philomena for guidance she was gone.

Dicky Leek broke the silence.

“Aunt Sybil?”

The figure approached, its shapeless fatdress swaying in the heated air.

“Decky? What the bloddy hal are yew dooin’ ear?”

Dicky explained, about the rattle, the Coven, the train ride, Rhys Camfry and the bonfire.

“Agnorence. Stupadity!” said Aunt Sybil, “Yer dunner need be naked for annie karnd of wetchcraft.” She told us to find some long switches, and having done so, we proceeded to fish our clothes out of the bonfire.

“Luke ut steet of yer,” she said, shaking her big, round head. The jackdaw crowed. “Why dedn’t yer jost buy thess Rhys Camfry another rattle?”

An alternative plan was quickly taking shape. Dicky’s Aunt Sybil took us in for the night, and the next day she visited Camfry and swapped a bevelled-edged mirror from her antique shop for Belter’s rattle (Camfry refusing to take another rattle in exchange, for some reason). She then replaced the most fire-damaged of our clothing with items from her late husband’s wardrobe, and we headed out to the game. Philomena and Agnes appeared again, outside the ground, and persuaded us to pay their entrance fee; they then spent the whole game cheering on the home side and sneering at us as each goal went in. After a 9-3 mauling (four goals coming from a young Martin Chivers), we retired to the Joiners Arms to drown our sorrows, but when I returned from my fourth visit to the Gents, I couldn’t find the rattle.

A rather miserable weekend, all in all, but there are no guarantees with football. Anyway, there would be other seasons to find Percy’s rattle, and other opportunities to show the Saints who was boss….